Wednesday, 19 April 2017

Emanuelle and The Last Cannibals (Joe D'Amato, 1977) DVD Review

“The tribe we are to locate are indeed cannibals – tie
up their victims, rip open their bellies, tear out their insides, and eat it.”
Joe D'Amato – otherwise known as Aristide Massaccesi – the director of such
grotesque delights as Anthropophagous (1980), is unlikely to go
down in the annals of cinema history as a master filmmaker with a deeply
considered artistic vision. His work may skew towards slap dash schlock, but he
got the job done and knew to never play coy: if his audiences wanted devoured
innards and boobies flopping about everywhere then that's exactly what he was
going to give them – and this is undoubtedly the case with Emanuelle and the
Last Cannibals...

Click “READ MORE” below to continue the review and see more
screenshots…

“She bit a chunk out of the nurse's breast and ate it
– just like a cannibal. Fantastic! This could be a great scoop!”
Emanuelle (Laura Gemser, Women's Prison Massacre) is an
undercover reporter who is determined to expose the most shocking stories
regardless of the risk to her person. The film kicks off in a mental ward
where, as Emanuelle secretly photographs the unattended patients, a screaming
nurse stumbles half-naked down a hallway with a chunk of her flesh missing. A
young white woman (who, it transpires, was being sexually abused by the
nurse) has flipped out and had to be restrained. Naturally, Emanuelle
sneaks in to her room to interview her … in a most peculiar manner. She hoists
up the savage patient's gown – observes a strange tattoo – and tries to get her
talking with a bit of *ahem* digital stimulation! The boob biter won't
talk, having been found on the banks of a South American river, so Emanuelle
steals a snapshot of the half-naked savage and sods off back to her Editor with
a story to pursue. How's that for journalistic integrity?!

“Well, you are provoking me, young lady, but I will
only answer you after having shown you some very interesting material.”
It turns out that the savage woman had been raised by cannibals, or some such
nonsense, and so Emanuelle's newspaper jumps at the chance to fund an
expedition – after the shortest bout of cold feet you've ever seen committed to
film. Guided by Professor Mark Lester (Gabrielle Tinti), they meet up
with some of his friends who live and work in the Amazon with a Christian
Mission. After a quick 'first night in the Amazon' bunk up – with coquettish
Bible thumper Isabelle (Monica Zanchi) having a good old perv through
the door crack – Emanuelle and Professor Lester head off with Isabelle and
Sister Angela (Annamaria Clementi) into the wilds of the green inferno.

“I came here to hunt and if my game happens to be a
human being I don't mind.” On their journey to discover the whereabouts
of the cannibal tribe (who have supposedly been extinct for half a century,
if you'll believe the government) they encounter deadly snakes, booby
traps, and a chimp with a nicotine habit. No, seriously. During the fifth
T&A scene in 30 minutes, a chimpanzee trundles out of the jungle, plops
down by the water, pinches a cigarette from a backpack and sparks up while it
watches Emanuelle and Isabelle wash each other in a lagoon! Suffice it to say,
the film's a bit out there. And that's all without mentioning Donald McKenzie (Donald
O'Brien, Zombie Holocaust aka Doctor Butcher M.D.) – an
impotent hunter with a thing for voyeurism – and his wife Maggie (a
decidedly underused Nieves Navarro, aka Susan Scott, Death Walks On High Heels), who has the hots for their shirtless helper Salvadore (Percy
Hogan).

“You can't possibly think that I've been waiting for
you all my life – I'm a free woman and I behave as such.” Trekking
deeper into the jungle, inevitably things go arse over tit, and the group
gradually dwindles as they become appetisers for the 'annual feast of
fertility' – a load of mumbo jumbo and 'ritualistic' cobblers, dreamed up by
D'Amato and his co-writer Romano Scandariato, that involves some rather
unsavoury courses. You wouldn't like what was for dessert, and so how on earth
will they get out of this pickle? Oh dear!

“Amazonia is a land that lives according to its own
rules.” In case you were in any doubt, this is an Italian exploitation
movie, and boy does it make that abundantly clear. The opening twenty minutes
take place in, where else, New York City before we ship off for South America.
Acting as his own cinematographer, D'Amato's brazen smash 'n' grab camera
operation works wonders in grabbing as many tourist spots and iconic Manhattan
sights as possible. You can almost sense the crew's nerves about (most
likely) not having any permits as curious Manhattan natives slow their pace
to look at the camera. You can imagine D'Amato smuggling a small camera into
public buildings under his coat before scampering away with a sly grin –
especially after shooting the scene in which Emanuelle ruts with her boyfriend
down by the manky water with the Brooklyn Bridge as a backdrop. And what
self-respecting exploitationer would be complete without plenty of tits and
gore? From the opening scene in the hospital the grubby vibe is efficiently
established. Scenes chock-full with norks, arses, and 70s bush are
machine-gunned at the viewer while, every now and then, a severed head on a spike
pops up or a mile of intestines get un-spooled from a rubbery torso.

“Emanuelle, you're crazy. Really, really crazy!”
To be fair, Italian exploitation films have never been best known for
inconspicuous dubbing into other languages, but this film takes the proverbial
biscuit with a cheeky nonchalance. Poorly synchronised at best, it soon becomes
a drinking game to spot the awkward mid-sentence pauses whenever the actors,
for example, talk while eating (an early scene at a New York eatery is
hilarious in this regard). Indeed, rather than rewrite the English script
to match the rhythm of the actor's lips, those who were tasked with dubbing
simply stop saying whatever they're saying whenever the actors' lips cease
moving, only to continue as if nothing had happened when their gobs start
flapping again.

“It was a quiet night, but now those savages will
start to move.” If you're familiar with some of D'Amato's work, you'll
know that subtlety was not one of his strong suits, and if you're familiar with
the cannibal sub-genre, you'll also know that cultural sensitivity was rarely
high on the agenda. In-keeping with that, this flesh-munching tribe are cast
under a fairly racist light – although the tribe is so utterly generic, and
only seen in full swing towards the end of the film, that the wider umbrella of
'dimly xenophobic' is perhaps more fitting. It comes down to the simple fear of
'unknown others' that was born from the fantastical tales, told many decades
prior, by first world adventurers trying to flog a book to the gullible masses.
D'Amato's film also scores few points for its bare bones story – which almost
entirely forgets about the titular character during its plodding second act –
as dodgy writing showers down blunt, utilitarian dialogue in which the topic of
conversation skips from one viewpoint to the next at split-second notice. It's
hard to tell if Emanuelle & Co's displays of questionable ethics throughout
is a result of thoughtless writing, or an incisive and self-aware jab at modern
society as it was then – either is entirely plausible.

“Don't despair, maybe they weren't all killed.”88 Films' DVD is presented in 1.85:1 with mono audio – in your choice of dubbed
English language, or Italian with English subtitles. Extras are particularly sparse:
an original trailer, Italian opening & closing credits (exactly the
same, just with Italian text), an 88 Films trailer reel, and reversible
sleeve art. Picture quality is generally good, but is a bit variable at times –
it's a new and pretty clean transfer, but not what you'd call a stellar visual
experience.

“She's a real savage.” Not for the easily
offended, Joe D'Amato's casually xenophobic film is a clash of sweaty softcore
porno and mean-spirited splatter horror, and as such Emanuelle and the Last
Cannibals doesn't quite know what it wants to be. Both the smut and the
grue are dispensed without much titillation or shock – the jump scares are
poorly executed and the sexy bits are marched out as if from a factory where
the motto is 'quantity not quality'. Despite the copious amount of bared
flesh and fumbling about – like an unseen hot dog being slapped against a
vaguely referenced doughnut – D'Amato's film lacks the rich themes, shocking
intensity, bold style, and even academic importance of Ruggero Deodato's Cannibal
Holocaust, which was released three years later and went on to become the
ultimate entry in the cannibal movie cycle. In 1978, D'Amato
would tread a similar path with Love Goddess of the Cannibals, but while
that film had better pacing, it didn't deliver on the flesh-eating aspect of
the title … Emanuelle and the Last Cannibals, however, does at least do
what it says on the tin (albeit quite haphazardly).

About Me

I am a British freelance filmmaker, as well as a writer, movie fanatic, and zombie obsessive. I am the author of "Dug Deep" and the "Celebrityville" series of books, and write for Sleaze Fiend Magazine and Homepage of the Dead. I'm the screenwriter for the upcoming film "For Want of a Nail".
Of the many filmmakers who influence me, some are: Romero, Raimi, Carpenter, Cameron, Fincher, Tarantino, Rodriguez, Kubrick, Boyle, Zombie, Martino, Fulci, Argento, Cronenberg, Marshall, Smith, Nolan, Dominik, Scott, Mann, Hooper, De Palma, Leone, Spielberg and Zemeckis.